Everything in its right place: a case report of reduplicative paramnesia with therapeutic and theoretical considerations

ABSTRACT

Introductions: Reduplicative paramnesia (RP) is a rare and poorly understood phenomenon in which a person believes the place they are in has been replicated and exists in two places at once. There is minimal extant theoretical work addressing possible cognitive mechanisms subtending RP.

Method: We present a new case of RP and discuss the therapeutic and theoretical implications of this case for the management and understanding of this phenomenon. Using the hypothetico-deductive approach to a neuropsychological case, we examine the phenomenon in the light of one and two-factor approaches to understanding the genesis of delusions.

Results: The individual discussed in this case showed some evidence of relatively efficient incorporation of new evidence (belief updating) despite concurrently maintaining a delusional belief system.

Conclusion: This case raises novel challenges for the two-factor account of neurological delusions.

KEYWORDS:

• Reduplicative paramnesia
• delusions
• two factor theory

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the permission of SH and her partner to publish this case study. We would also like to acknowledge the contributions of William Koller and an anonymous reviewer to this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, [HG]. The data are not publicly available due to privacy/confidentiality restrictions.

Notes

1 We are indebted to an anonymous reviewer for drawing our attention to this latter distinction.